After retirement, county workers stay on

Deputy Public Defender Salvatore Tarantino retired in 2008, but here he is working an arraignment last year. — John Gibbins

Over the past decade three San Diego County public safety departments have paid $29.4 million to hundreds of retirees who were hired back to work part-time while still drawing a full pension.

The practice — allowed under county and state pension rules — has grown at the county, reaching records last year for the number of hours, dollars paid out and average pay per hour worked.

A U-T Watchdog review of county data showed that the hours worked by retired sheriff, district attorney and public defender employees topped 100,000 last year for the first time.

The growth in use of retired workers at the county has come as politicians in Sacramento have tried to tighten up the practice, passing a public pension overhaul including provisions that retirees should be rehired only for temporary work and not as a permanent solution to staffing problems.

The law does not apply here, as San Diego County has its own charter governing such things.

Retirees who come back to work part-time don’t get health benefits, or earn more credits for pensions. That makes them rehiring them a good deal, officials said.

“We’re getting discounted labor so to speak, as well as historical knowledge and a great deal of expertise,” said Tanya Sierra, spokeswoman for District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis.

The practice is intended to allow government to hire retirees with special skills or knowledge, or to help out with reducing a specific backlog, or serve as “extra help.” One critic said the practice amounts to double-dipping.

“I can see in an emergency you may want to bring some people out of retirement,” said Marcia Fritz, president of the California Foundation for Fiscal Responsibility, which advocates for reducing public employee benefits across the state. “They did not intend for people to continue to work for years and years after they retired.”

Some county retirees have worked under part-time “call backs,” as the jobs are known, for years.

Since 2002, former homicide detective Robert Fullmer has worked thousands of hours in the department’s personnel division, earning between $33,000 and as much as $42,000 per year to supplement a pension of $52,000 per year.

In total Fullmer has been paid $434,533 in wages during that time. He declined to comment on his post-retirement work when contacted on the job at the sheriff’s department on Friday.

Between 2002-03 and 2012-13, the sheriff paid out $19.9 million to retired workers to come back and work, according to the U-T review. The district attorney spent $6.2 million on rehires and the public defender, $3.3 million in the same period.

Over that time the average hourly pay for all those rehired — which includes lawyers making $60 per hour and secretaries making a third of that — increased almost $10, from $29.44 to $38.58.

Last year, all three department combined paid rehired pensioners $3.8 million. That is more than in any year over the past decade.

The county allows retirees to work a maximum of 120 days per year, or 960 total hours — whichever is greater. Public safety workers, like sheriff’s deputies, can work more hours without getting the penalty.

Retirees who are covered by the state retirement system, CalPERS, have an identical provision in their laws, which has been on the books since the early 1990s.

The Watchdog found that some retirees have worked under the program year after year.

The sheriff’s department provided a list of 250 retirees who have been rehired, and 10 of them have worked under the program for 10 years or more.

One of those pensioners works in the communication division, four work in county courthouses providing security and the others no longer work, according to Capt. Mike Barnett, who leads the personnel division.

Barnett said the retirees are called in when other deputies in the courthouses are ill or on vacation, and also help out in other areas of the department as needed. Retirees who are rehired make up less than 2 percent of the department’s workforce, and most work only sporadically, he said.

“Those who are more available and willing, and have the skills and knowledge necessary to complete the job we need accomplished, work more than those who do not,” Barnett said.

After retiring in 2004, Deputy District Attorney Peter Cross began drawing an annual pension of $72,000 per year. He also came back to work in the appellate division for seven years handling some appeals and public records act requests. He was paid as little as $11,000 one year and as much as $68,000. He could not be reached for comment.

The state has moved to rein in the practice over the past few years, for CalPERS retirees.

Legislation passed in 2011 emphasized that callback retirees can only be put into positions that are temporary, and only for limited duration. CALPERS has indicated that the work can’t be used as a “permanent solution to business needs” for governments.

The law has also added the word “specialized” to the regulations to clarify that retirees hired for certain jobs must have specialized skills to qualify.

Barnett, of the sheriff’s department, said that the retirees who get rehired meet that criteria.

“Every position, including positions in the courthouses, requires extensive training and experience in order to become proficient and provide the service to the public we expect of our staff,” he said.

Chief Deputy Public Defender Randy Mize said the retirees his department uses are put in key positions in the courthouse that aren’t suited for less experienced lawyers, such as the busy felony arraignment courtroom in the downtown courthouse.

There, veteran Deputy Public Defender Salvatore Tarantino has worked since retiring in 2008 with a pension of about $95,000 per year. He’s worked close to the maximum of 960 hours nearly each year since and earned on average an extra $56,000 annually.

“It’s a specialized job,” Mize said of handling arraignments, arguing for bail and the other tasks in the busy court. “I need someone who can do it efficiently and effectively for our clients.”

Callback workers

Year

Hours

Pay

Average pay per hour

2002-03

64,909

$1,910,628

$29.44

2003-04

57,709

$1,855,696

$32.16

2004-05

61,244

$2,156,707

$35.22

2005-06

69,032

$2,387,292

$34.58

2006-07

91,992

$3,143,596

$34.17

2007-08

94,772

$3,265,184

$34.45

2008-09

81,930

$2,916,763

$35.60

2009-10

68,465

$2,389,655

$34.90

2010-11

68,120

$2,481,665

$36.43

2011-12

83,480

$3,101,806

$37.16

2012-13

100,112

$3,862,165

$38.58

Data for retired employees coming back to work for the sheriff, public defender and district attorney of San Diego County. Source: Each department